Signpost: Producing 16-month bull beef in Youghal
Donnchadh and Eamon McCarthy on their farm at Carrigeen, Youghal, Co. Waterford. Picture: Patrick Browne
Eamon and his son Donnchadh are farming in Carrigeen, Glendine, Youghal, Co Waterford and are part of the Teagasc Future Beef programme with the Signpost programme.
We are running a suckling to beef enterprise split into spring (60%) and autumn (40%) calving consisting of 55 suckler cows. The males are finished as under 16-month bull beef, while the heifers, not retained for breeding, are finished at 18-20 months. They keep their own heifers for breeding.
We operate a compact calving system in both spring and autumn calving. The herd is calved very compactly with 100% of the cows calved in 6 weeks for both the spring and autumn herds. 100 % of the herd are served to AI, heat detection collars are used for identifying cows in heat.
The autumn herd started calving in the last week of July and was calved over five to six weeks. The spring herd will commence calving on February 12 and finish around March 31.
Currently, preparations are well underway for the spring calving season. All our spring calving cows are receiving a pre-calving mineral on their silage. Heifers that were housed in bedded sheds were turned out to grass around February 5, these sheds were cleaned out and will be used for housing the spring calving herd.
The maiden heifers can be housed again if weather conditions become unfavourable for grazing. Turning these heifers out early will improve live weight gain pre breeding, and also because these animals are going out to graze the silage ground, it should result in higher quality silage.
We have selected the following bulls for breeding replacements ( AA9860, SI4350, LM61720). The bulls were selected on the Replacement index, carcass weight, age at finish, calving interval and milk. The bulls have an average milk kg breeding value of 9.77kg.
We also place a large emphasis on carcass weight and age of finish with the team averaging 23.43kg and -7.41 days respectively for these traits. We will use the Angus bull (AA9860) on the maiden heifers for ease of calving as he has a beef heifer calving difficulty of 3.43%. High index terminal Charolais sires will be used on the cows not selected for breeding replacements.
We have taken this into consideration, selecting bulls with the lowest breeding value for TB resistance. In order to improve TB resistance in our herd, we are aiming to use bulls with a PTA (breeding value) of less than 8%. The bulls used have TB breeding values of 6.40%, 4.30% and 8.20%. If we want to make more rapid progress we need to select bulls less than 6.5%.
Our spring-born weanlings are housed and receiving 70 DMD silage ad lib plus 5kg of concentrates per day. The spring-born weanling bulls suffered a setback this winter due to an outbreak of viral pneumonia. We never had an issue with viral pneumonia until this year.
In consultation with our vet, the animals were tested to determine the cause and treated accordingly. In order to prevent an outbreak next winter, we are drawing up a herd health plan with our vet, which will incorporate vaccinating weanlings against viral pneumonia.
The bull weanlings' thrive was affected, however, they have now improved greatly, and it is still planned to finish as many of these animals under 16 months as possible. The bulls are moved to a straw bedded shed and once bulls reach 500kg liveweight they are drafted for finishing over a 90 to 100 day period on ad lib concentrates.
We also tested a sample of animals from different age categories for trace element deficiencies and selenium seems to be showing up as a problem. The dry cows are receiving their pre-calver mineral so this should cover the selenium. All other categories of stock have received a selenium bolus.
We have applied for a TAMS 3 grant for the construction of a roofed easy feed unit over a newly built slatted tank. The shed will mainly be used for housing weanlings. We are awaiting approval under TAMS 3.
The shed will be sheltered from the prevailing winds and open to the north with the feeding apron sheltered by a canopy. The cattle will be able to feed at both sides with hinged doors over the trough to protect against rain/draughts. We are hoping to install rubber mats in the shed in order to improve animal comfort, however, unfortunately mats are not covered under TAMS 3.
